A Brief Overview of the Expanse
To begin, i would like to lay to rest a common misconception. The title "Expanse" does not relate to the empires within our starscape, but rather the starscape itself. The Expanse has always been the Expanse, ever since our arm of the Galaxy was born. As such, whenever i refer to the Expanse, remember that i am not referring to any political, social, or scientific aspects, but merely the stars themselves. The Expanse is A small part of the twin-spiral galaxy given many names. The Collective refer to it as the Homely Galaxy, the Reptilians call it Whudt juk-Secco, the Avians title it Kelita Axioma, and the Humans named it The Milky Way. So to reduce confusion, i will simply refer to it as the Galaxy. We live on the very tip of the longer arm, a small, but dense pocket of space consisting of 549 stars, 1393 planets, and 3.7 trillion sentient life forms. We are separated into 7 large Subspaces: Collective Space, Avian Space, Reptilian Space, Human Space, the Dead Sector, Far Space and the Void. The first four are self-explanatory, as each consists of the scape-claims of the 4 super-species. The other three sectors are what surround us. The Void is the emptiness of space at the end of the arm, where there is nothing but black emptiness and cold for millions of light years. The Dead Sector is the large field of dead stars and planets, destroyed by an ancient supernova. This vast, dead space is what separates the Expanse from the rest of the Galaxy. It is sparsely explored and completely devoid of life, save for the small groupings of pirates, exiles and degenerates that populate the border. Far Space is unique in itself. It consist mostly of empty space, with a few isolated stars and solar systems, creating a very thin bridge connecting the Expanse to the rest of the arm of the Galaxy. While tantalizing, we have yet to create ships fast enough to get to even the first star, Indor, 98 light years away. I have been working feverishly to fix this annoying dilemma, but at the time of this writing, the rest of the Arm remains a mystery to us. In the Expanse, there exists hundreds of sentient species who travel the stars together. To better categorize ourselves, all the "member species" are collected into generalizations called the 4 "superspecies". These are the Humans, the Reptiles, the Collective, and the Avians. These should mostly speak for themselves, though the Collective might seen more vague. The Collective basically consists of all canines, felines, lutras, and other mammals not considered part of any of the other 3 generalizations. It has by far the largest variety of any of the generalizations. (Note: Despite common belief, a planet under control of the Sovereign Union that is inhabited by a non-Collective species is NOT considered Collective. The Sovereign Union's jurisdiction is NOT the basis for the Collective generalization). In the next section i will cover all of the factions and empires of the Expanse. This will be the largest section and possibly the most important. Please pay close attention so you may better understand the rest of this collection.